By the River
by caesarsdaughter
Summary: It's nearing the end. Spoilers up through Ep. 24.


_Author's Note: They aren't mine._

_Disclaimer: This is an elaboration on a scene from Ep. 24, so obviously it contains spoilers up to and through that episode._

Maybe it was a foolish quest. Maybe they shouldn't have ever started on it. Maybe she should have taken the owners of the teashop up on their offer. She could have stayed. It would have been a nice life. Well, it would have been a quiet life, anyway. Maybe she shouldn't have saved them. Well, no. She absolutely should have saved them. She was glad she'd done it. But maybe she shouldn't have convinced them to come with her. Maybe it'd have been better if she'd let them just have at each other and been done with it. No, it was better that she stopped that too. But she could have just let them go on their ways without her.

Then they wouldn't have to say goodbye.

Then these last days wouldn't feel the way they had. As though tiny pieces of her stomach, her intestines, her lungs were all being ripped out of her - some slowly, some quickly andat random intervals, some rapidly and in succession. When the realization that they were nearing the end (whatever it turned out to be) dawned on her, her breath quickened and her eyes swam in her head. She felt pins and needles in her fingers and in her knees - as though her body was willing her to stop moving, drop to the ground, and refuse to go on: just to keep them with her a little while longer.

For the hundredth time, she couldn't breathe.

Fuu got up from the campsite, and wandered over to the water's edge. The embankment was rocky: jagged and inhospitable. It seemed appropriate somehow. It mirrored her feelings: cut up and sharp, carved by a rushing she couldn't control. It hadn't felt like this when her mother had died. When the shock had worn away, she'd been left with a dull ache and a longing. Whether for her mother's presence, for retribution, or simply for time to pass, Fuu had never been certain.

But this, this was a new, raw, bleeding wound. These men were her brothers; they were her companions; they were her equals and superiors; they were her protectors and benefactors, her bodyguards, her friends, her... She loved them.

She hadn't realized how much she relied on them.

"Hey."

And there he was, again. How the hell did he do that? Was it his samurai training? A woman in distress and he automatically knew? She was crying and he automatically knew? That didn't seem right, really. He had been much colder before, less perceptive, less generous with his concern. Maybe she was better at hiding the pain before? Well, there hadn't been as much before. And he certainly hadn't been the cause, unlike now. Unlike with Sera. Unlike with Shino.

Over the past months, he seemed able to sense her moods more. Or was he just more willing to act on what he could always feel? Maybe she should thank Shino for that. How ironic.

"Is something up?" He had approached her quietly. Could he ever be anything but stealthy? Fuu doubted it.

He wasn't wearing his glasses: no show, no mask.

No, nothing was up really. She just felt like she was dying. Looking at him was torturous; not looking at him was impossible. She wanted to touch him, to make sure he was really there. She also wanted him to leave her the hell alone. Could he tell her soul was bleeding out in gushing torrents? Could he sense that, too? Could he feel her desperate want to sink to the ground and scream in agony? Could he tell that his nearness was crushing her because it would leave her too soon, at all?

In her own head, she sounded like a fool. She scolded herself for thinking too much, for feeling too much. She had always been pretty dramatic, silly even, but she couldn't stop. When they were gone from her, she just didn't think she'd be complete. They were parts of her. Mugen was often the worst, Jin the best. She needed them. She wanted...

She'd felt it when the bridge had collapsed, when they had only found Sera's body, when Sera almost stole Mugen from her, too. She honestly didn't know what she'd have done if Mugen had died. Jin's death had been too painful to consider real - over time, she'd heard stories or women and men who couldn't understand that their loved ones had died, were gone. She'd thought them exaggerations. Even when her mother was taken, she understood, she continued on. But with the bridge, when only his glasses were found, Fuu simply couldn't fathom, couldn't process that Jin would have lost to anyone. That he'd be so easily taken from her, that she'd not had a chance...

And she'd seen Sera's skill. She'd seen Sera's attack on Mugen; she had thrown herself between it and its prey. What matter if Fuu died, if this woman had already taken Jin? Mugen at least should live.

"No, nothing." And here was a chance. Wasted.

"Fuu..." Was this how he had sounded to Shino? Gentle? Understanding? Compassionate? God, that she had heard it first, would hear it again. Fuu felt herself bleed a little more. "...what are you going to do when you reach the Samurai who smells of Sunflowers?"

Of course. The quest. They were nearing the end, after all. Was it really getting colder? Could he feel it too?

"You're right..." She honestly didn't know. Somewhere along the way, she'd stopped thinking about the destination. It had become about the journey itself - her time with her friends, "I guess I'll have to decide."

Jin looked at her. Sadly? Did Jin feel sadness about the end? Did he feel regret? Did he care about losing her?

"...If I..." he trailed off, unwilling to continue.

She couldn't think about it, contemplate it. Why was he asking her to? If he died? No one could beat him. She refused to believe it. No, he wouldn't die. He would walk with her to Nagasaki. Then he would go away - far away. He would live. He and Mugen couldn't fight now, and no one else would find him. He could disappear; anyone who tried to best him along the way would lose. They'd have to lose.

"I don't want to think about that..." She glanced quickly at the campsite, to Mugen's recumbent form. "...Mugen is..."

Would he still try to kill Jin? With Fuu gone, would they just go back to where they had started? Was it possible? Mugen was a stubborn ass. Didn't he know he'd lose, that he couldn't possibly beat Jin?

Fuu silently willed Mugen to somehow, sometime soon, comprehend. If they fought, Jin had to live. She couldn't imagine the world without them both, even if far from her, but it was Jin who couldn't - wouldn't - couldn't lose.

She hadn't stopped to consider what she'd do when she found the Sunflower Samurai because she hadn't stopped to consider how life would resume when the journey was over. She thought she could go on, even empty, so long as he was alive and whole. Could she? How much remorse would he feel when he struck Mugen down? How injured would he be when he landed the final blow?

So she prayed that Mugen wouldn't try.

"...I'm sorry." And she was. She was sorry she'd dragged him on this stupid journey. She was sorry she'd bound him to her. She was sorry she hadn't forced him to stay with Shino, to run as far as he could just to be happy. She was sorry she'd sent him with Sera. She was sorry she was so selfish she wanted him away from her, just so she could wonder if he felt her absence. She was sorry for the pain she felt when she realized that he probably didn't. Was she sorry she'd met him?

Fuu lowered her head and leaned closer to his chest. Just this once, she allowed herself to move into him. Only slightly, hesitantly, the wind causing her hair to whisper to him, to touch him more.

She didn't expect him to respond.

But as she felt his hand touch her shoulder, and fire sparked on her skin, she wondered if he could feel her burning. Did he care? Could he?

And she knew it was time to go, time to set them free. She wondered for the hundredth time how she would.


End file.
